Mayhem Miller Live Tweets Police Standoff, Bums Everyone Out

Former UFC fighter, and overall MMA personality, Jason “Mayhem” Miller has made his way into the news again. Sigh…

Don’t get me wrong, I love Mayhem Miller. In fact, I refused to watch his horrid MTV show Bully Beatdown in order to maintain my feelings about him as a fan. I ignored all 24 episodes to keep the image I have of him, in early stages of his career, intact. As a white-kid who grew up in Hawaii, I was infinitely inspired when a young, skinny, and scrappy Mayhem beat the crap out of Egan Inoue (a local MMA hero) with jiu jitsu in front of thousands of angry locals. That was back in 2003 when his tagline was “Haole Boy Can Scrap.” I fell in love, and honestly, this fight in particular was one of the reasons I started to train mixed martial arts more seriously.

But like a lot of the bigger personalities in the sport, Mayhem just got louder, more abrasive, and well… started to feel more like an attention whore and started to lose that every-man underdog vibe he came on the scene with.

We all know it’s true. There were the times he was arrested for domestic violence, the time he was found sleeping in a church, and in one of his more bizarre displays of behavior, there was even the time he walked off of Ariel Helwani’s radio show. The sad part for fans was not knowing if all of this is part of his act, or if it's caused by mental illness. Either way, he needs help.

Today, Mayhem raised the bar on his particular brand of antics, finally breaking my insular image of him as the scrappy Haole-boy. After a SWAT team showed up at his house this morning to arrest him for what seems to be a missed court date, he refused to come out of his home, and instead created a standoff with officers—while live tweeting the entire event.

While standing his ground on the inside of his home in Orange County, California, Miller sent a barrage of tweets, claiming that the show of police force was excessive and “a waste.” His rhetoric was probably true, but like all things Mayhem, felt very played out. Especially the comparison between his situation and the more serious and widespread problem of police brutality against African Americans across the country.

I did nothing wrong. This is the state of American Justice. I feel you black men. They fear, so they threaten to take our lives. Abhorrent.

UPDATE: The standoff ended at around 2:30 PM PST, when officers made a remote entry into his house, and took Mayhem under custody. We hope he gets out soon, gets centered, and finds his way back to the sport he helped create. We love you, Haole-boy!